Frequently, in the installation and removal of faucets and spouts in washbasins or lavatories, a plumber must operate in confined and difficult-to-work in spaces. While operating in such confined areas, engagement and disengagement of present technology wrench jaws with basin and lavatory mounting nuts must usually be done by the operator reaching up from below with one hand, while holding the bottom or handle end of the wrench with the other hand. The installation or removal operation is thus often awkward, tiring, and slow.
One common and readily recognized type of nut and pipe wrench is depicted in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,385,180 to Lizak, and 1,408,958 to Phipps et al. Both patents show wrenches adapted to grip polygonal or curved surfaces, and include jaws adapted to slip about the corners of a nut or about the surface of a pipe when the wrench handle is swinging in one direction, and will securely grip the nut or pipe, when the wrench handle is swinging in the opposite direction. The wrenches are provided with manually operated adjustor elements for increasing or decreasing the gap between opposing jaw elements.
Various embodiments of self-tightening pipe wrenches are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 341,815 to Newton, 2,623,428 to Larson, 2,875,659 to Haberle, and 2,953,050 to Nolen. As was the case with the aforementioned nut and pipe wrenches, the opposed jaw elements of these "self-tightening" pipe wrenches securely grip a nut or pipe when the wrench handle is swinging in a particular direction. However, the jaws are self closing, and must be opened by hand to be placed in surrounding-engaging relation with the nut or pipe being turned.
Several specialized basin-type wrenches are used in the plumbing trade in certain instances, such as to install or remove basin or lavatory faucets and spouts after the basin and lead-in plumbing are in place. The faucets and spouts must be attached to, or detached from, the basin itself and the pipes stubbed out from the wall below the basin. Since the sizes of the installation nuts and connectors are not typically uniform from one such job to another, the basin wrench must be capable of accepting a rather wide range of nut sizes. For this reason the wrenches include one fixed jaw and one movable jaw. Examples of three wrenches which utilize such fixed and movable jaw arrangements can be found in U. S. Pat. Nos. 1,521,464 to Miller, 2,018,154 to Scott, and 2,491,623 to Sesak. The wrenches in these patents include self-closing jaw elements which securely grip pipe or nut elements upon rotation in a particular direction of a wrench handle. Various embodiments of the jaw elements of these patents rotate about an axis separate and parallel to the wrench handle axis. Leverage and rotation of the jaws is applied via rotation of bar or handle elements having an axis transverse to the wrench handles.
All of the above prior art wrenches require difficult operator hand jaw manipulation and/or adjustment for engagement and disengagement of the wrench jaws with the mounting nut or pipes. In the case of washbasins or lavatory installation or removal, engagement and disengagement of the wrench jaws of the '464, '154, and '623 patents with the mounting nut most probably would have to be carried out by the operator reaching up from below with one hand, while holding and twisting the bottom or handle end of the wrenches with the other hand.
Another problem manifests itself in that the rotational motion of the wrench, required to tighten or loosen a nut, is often severely limited by the proximity of the basin bowl and the wall behind the basin. In such circumstances the wrench must be disengaged from the nut and backed-off frequently, re-engaged with the nut, and rotated again in the desired direction. It is desirable to achieve this "ratcheting" action without the need to reach up to the nut and jaws with one hand in order to secure the engagement or disengagement of wrench jaws and nut.
From the foregoing, it can be seen that it is a primary object of this invention to provide a positive action basin wrench that enables complete, positive control of the engagement and disengagement of the wrench jaws with the mounting nuts of basins and lavatories, and the like, from the handle end of the wrench.
It is also an object of this invention to provide a positive action basin wrench having high reliability of engagement of the wrench jaws with the nut to be turned.
A further object of this invention is to provide a basin wrench capable of carrying out a "ratcheting" action without the need for manually reaching up and handling the wrench jaws or an adjustor element located in proximity of the jaws.